Team:Groningen/For the parents

From 2010.igem.org

Unlike conventional engineering, bioengineering has always lacked the predictability and reliability that lie at the heart of mechanical design. Designing a machine for a special task might be a challenging task but the interaction of the used components such as screws, gears, heaters, motors, switches etc. is not afflicted by unforeseeable events. In biology the interactions of components is only predictable by models and not by the underlying physical forces. Hence most biological designs can not be planed in theory and later adapted, they have to be developed by a trial and error system which takes up a lot of time and resources. Igem is creating a library of biological devices called biobricks which interact in a predictable manner and can be combined to execute certain tasks. This allows bioengineers to plan biological machines combining parts that do not interact naturally and predict their behavior. The biobricks are like instructions which can be combined to chains which will be executed by the cell which they inhabit. This is not unlike a computer program. So lets say you want to build a machine which smells like coffee in the morning,